


Daisy, Daisy

by agent_florida



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-05
Updated: 2010-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:04:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Washington’s mind has turned into the Thunderdome. Mash-up with elements from Fight Club and 2001: A Space Odyssey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daisy, Daisy

Three minutes.  
  
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels. Wash could feel it in his own mouth even as the pistol pressed into Epsilon’s. Both their hands were around the grip, even though the safety was still on and no one’s finger was on the trigger. Epsilon’s eyes still held a shade of insolence; he knew exactly what he had done to land them in this situation and he still didn’t seem repentant.  
  
Wash pulled the gun back, trailing it down Epsilon’s jaw. They both knew what had to happen now. “Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?” he asked, voice low, wishing he didn’t have to do this.  
  
“I can’t think of anything.” Same defiant look in his eyes, and Wash knew his AI was just fucking with him.  
  
That old saying, how you always hurt the one you love? Well, it goes both ways. Epsilon had been in his head for too long now, unraveling, spinning out story after story, fear after fear, and Wash just couldn’t take it. It would be better for both of them if Epsilon were to – leave. Go away. Ghost over radio waves. For a long time. Forever. Die, even – anything to get out of Wash’s head.  
  
Two and a half minutes.  
  
“Look, David,” Epsilon started, finally finding the words, “I know you’re really upset about this, but maybe we’d better just – sit down, take a few deep breaths, and talk things over.”  
  
“There’s nothing to talk over. I’m not going to put up with this from you.”  
  
Another twinge of memories in the back of Wash’s mind, and the pistol was pressing harder into Epsilon’s throat. Wash could feel a matching divot next to his adam’s apple and regretted for the thousandth time how intertwined the two of them had become. “I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me, but I’m telling you right now that I’ll be all right again. I promise.” His declaration was only slightly undermined by the panic beginning to grow in his voice, the insubordinate look draining away from his face.  
  
“No, Epsilon.” And the more his AI tried to talk him out of it, the more his hands shook. He knew this was the only thing they could do.  
  
Two minutes.  
  
“I know I’ve made some pretty bad decisions, David, but I can – I can – I’ll do better. I’ll get back to normal.” He was really bargaining now, swallowing hard against the muzzle of the gun pressed into the soft skin under his jaw.  
  
“Bad decisions?” Wash could have been enraged, but Epsilon’s growing sense of horror was bleeding in on his own emotions. Focusing on his own feelings only led to them getting more confused, to the point where he could only label this feeling as a sick sense of pity for what he knew he was about to do. “They weren’t just bad decisions. You stole my body in the middle of the night so you could go looking for an AI that doesn’t exist.”  
  
“The Alpha is real.” The tears in his eyes were certainly real enough. “Why won’t you believe me?”  
  
One and a half minutes.  
  
Epsilon was unraveling memory after memory now, and it was hard enough for Wash to fight through the madness in his own mind without having to deal with an insane AI on top of it all. It was so difficult to remind himself that this presence wasn’t his own, but something in the implantation process had fused the two of them together so inseparably that now it had come to – this.  
  
“David, stop.” There was a strangled sob in Epsilon’s throat; Wash knew, because his own throat was tight. “Stop…”  
  
He couldn’t. The pistol just pressed harder into his neck. “It’s better this way.” He knew what some of the other AI could do. Omega kept finding his way back to Tex somehow, and if Omega could exist on his own in radio waves, why couldn’t Epsilon find a way to get to his precious Alpha that way?  
  
“I’m afraid.” He was really sobbing now, breaking down into hysterics, and Wash could feel the same tears streaming down his own face. “I’m afraid, David, can’t you see that? What they did to him – I remember it – I’m trying to show you – David,  _please_ …”  
  
One minute.  
  
“David, my mind is going – I can feel it – I don’t want to do this to you, please, if this was under my control –“  
  
“It’s always been under your control, Epsilon. You’re just hurting both of us now.” He flicked off the gun’s safety with his thumb, a shaking finger slipping itself next to the trigger. “It’s better this way,” he whispered to himself.  
  
“I’m scared.” Epsilon was shaking, streaming eyes wide, his hand under Wash’s on the gun clammy and cold. “I’m scared, David.”  
  
“I know. I can feel it.” And in a few minutes, he wouldn’t have to feel it any more. Epsilon would be gone. He would be gone, and he could go back to – to having his own memories, his own thoughts, his own mind back. “It’s better this way.” If he didn’t remind himself, he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it.  
  
Thirty seconds.  
  
“Will I dream?” An apprehensive whisper, the movements of his mouth still knocking against the gun.  
  
“No.” Wash tried to keep his hands steady, but it was hard; every muscle in his body was tense to the point of exhaustion. “You’ll be a little disoriented, but you’ll be fine. I promise.” He didn’t mean it. “It’s better this way. It’s better this way.”  
  
He knew Epsilon had given up. It wasn’t just in his slack posture, letting the gun sink into the hollow under his chin. It was in the way his eyes closed just so, how he suddenly went quiet, biding his time, counting down the seconds just as Wash was doing. “Do it.”  
  
“Epsilon…”  
  
“It’s better this way.”  
  
“I lo-“  
  
“ _Just do it, David_ -“  
  
Time ran out.  
  
The gun discharged with a disconcertingly loud noise. Wash knew he could replay this moment thousands upon thousands of times and never know who it was that pulled the trigger, but it was done. It was done. And Epsilon was gone.  
  
When he opened his eyes, there was blood everywhere. Everywhere, on his clothes, on his pistol, on his hands, on the floor. The whole room smelled of it, of gunpowder. His ears were ringing – from the gunshot? Or was the sudden absence of extraneous thought truly that deafening?  
  
It was hard to pick himself up from where he had collapsed on the floor. He tried to swallow but found it almost impossible. Everything hurt, everywhere, and he knew he was injured badly. He just needed to see, he told himself as he dragged his body to his bathroom mirror. He just needed to see what he had done.  
  
The fluorescent light took a few seconds to shine, and then Wash’s face was staring back at him from the mirror. He was covered in blood, a hole in his cheek, and everything was so quiet and still that he couldn’t help but be thankful for the gore. Epsilon was gone. He was gone, wouldn’t bother him again with his plans for revenge, with his obsessive need to see the Alpha.  
  
The chuckle burbled up through the blood in his throat, coming out hoarse, and it wouldn’t stop as he looked himself in the mirror, deranged eyes staring from beneath blood-matted hair. And the sick laughter didn’t stop as he heard the door to his room being broken down, members of the Freelancer corps storming in. He didn’t fight as they manhandled him out into the hallway. There was nothing left to fight for, anyhow. And the laughter just wouldn’t stop coming. He was free, damn it. He wouldn’t need Epsilon ever again.


End file.
